Ashland, OR Spring Immersion

I recently finished reading Learning to Fly by Steph Davis - if you like strong female adventure stories, I would highly recommend it! Anyways, in the book- Steph, a rock climber based out of Moab, UT highlights how an abrupt move to a friend’s couch in Boulder, CO (so that she could sky dive everyday) helped her work through the aftermath of her marriage ending. She describes how immediately welcoming and supportive the community was and how jumping everyday was the only thing that gave her a reprieve from the dark feelings that were otherwise consuming her.

Reading that a few months ago, while sitting alone in my truck camper in the 90-degree, late spring, desert heat after losing a lot of sleep over my most recent relationship failing, I felt intense jealously. I wasn’t even close to married, but losing the person that I spent every day with and believed I would continue to spend every day with, was overwhelmingly painful.

Normally I would seek solace in running. Alone, or with my community. The combination of social time, seeing beautiful places, waist deep wildflowers, and complete physical exhaustion had never failed to get me through a breakup. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this time around I was and still am recovering from a stress fracture in my femur. Running from my feelings was not an option. That’s okay, I thought, I have been through injuries before, I will just lean into climbing, photography, maybe cycling, or my community.

Finding safe, psyched, remote 9:00 – 5:00 working, (preferably) female climbing partners in the middle of the desert proved to be slightly more challenging than I had expected. I left Indian Creek feelingly confused by my ratio of bad human interactions to good climbing days, slightly ashamed about my head game and embarrassed by my physical fitness. Climbing, sadly, was not the antidote this time around.

That’s alright, we still have photography, cycling, and community. Photography and cycling proved to be too slow paced to drown out the relatively constant loop of “Why did he leave? How could he leave [me]?” in my brain. I met up with a friend to go cycling in Mallorca for a week. The trip was incredible and I am so grateful for the experience, but not even the community + cycling + international travel + gelato combo was enough to right the ship.

 When I got back to OR, I spent a long weekend camping and biking around new places with my best friend, but still could not shake the overwhelming numbness. Even while surrounded by beautiful, loving people, I felt very alone in my grief. Support from friends and family felt akin to a mother proudly wearing a macaroni necklace made by her kindergartener- they had to love me.

Fast forward a few weeks to a steamy Tuesday evening at the laundromat in Ashland, OR when I was approached by a large man who said “You look like you need women’s self-defense”. In that moment, laundromat lights flickering, hidden behind rows of towering industrial washing machines, and drowned out by the metal clanking sound of buttons in a dryer, I felt like I needed women’s self-defense.

 The man then handed me a colorful flyer crammed with size 8 font; it was a class schedule for the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym next door. “Women’s self-defense, every day at 5:00 p.m., you should come” he said with a smile. Relieved, and amused by my own fear, I carefully tucked flyer into my duffle bag. Perhaps subconsciously or purely due to a lack of surface area in my camper, I found a very visible spot for it on top of my cooler when I got home that night. I picked up the flyer the next morning when I opened the cooler to grab the oat milk for my morning coffee, I smoothed the edges, and place it back on top. Every day at 5:00 p.m. huh? A little over a week after meeting Gabriel in the laundromat, I showed up, at 5:00 p.m., for my first class.

I probably should have been more intimidated or insecure than I was. I showed up completely incorrectly dressed (in spandex shorts and a crop top) but Gabriel found a spare Gi for me to wear and kindly let me know when I put the pants on backwards. The three other women in the class were relentlessly patient with me as I learned that you tap by tapping the person (not the ground) and that the point of Jiu Jitsu is to get the other person to submit. I genuinely did not come to class with an understanding that there was a point to all of the movements we were learning, making me an extremely inadequate rolling partner. Eventually (hopefully) I started to get the hang of it.

After class, I would bike home, sweaty and completely exhausted. The dog seemed exceptionally excited to see me and lick the sweat (my sweat, other people’s sweat) off of my shins as I regaled Annika with tales from class “I learned how to jump out of a headstand today! I’ve never even been able to do a headstand in yoga before”. I could see a hint of concern as she smiled and nodded supportively before assuring me that it was really alright if I used her shower. After rinsing off and eating whatever food I had in the camper, I would crawl into bed and fight my eyelids for as long as possible. There was an entire glossary of terms I needed to learn “Americana, Kimura, Armbar” and YouTube had the answers.

I did not see myself spending all of my free time in a strip mall when I drove out to Oregon with my gravel bike, but the somewhat constant threat of being tackled and choked into submission by a 235lb man was enough to demand my full attention and temporarily shock me out of my depression. A world that seemed previously inaccessible to me as a woman from a suburban east coast town, opened up.  The instructors took me seriously, and answered all of my questions thoughtfully. They taught me how to take care of myself. I felt strong and capable in previously vulnerable situations. Situations that I used to spend the entirety of a 4 hour long run worrying about. It was addictive.

I recently learned, that there is a relatively widely accepted psychological theory that having physical experiences that directly contradict the helplessness we feel during a traumatic event can help us re-wire our brains and regain control of our lives in the aftermath of the trauma. It seems like jiu jitsu did just that for me.  Shortly after going to my first class, I began to feel happy, and creative, and strong. I feel resilient again, and I am grateful for that.

As I said, when I was reading Learning to Fly I was jealous of Steph, because I thought she was privileged to be able to drop everything and temporarily move to a new state to pick up an entirely new hobby. But then there I was, extending my trip to Oregon by several weeks to live in my friend’s driveway, go to class, and be a part of a lovely, warm, accepting community. +1 for the post break-up full immersion experience.  

Favorite song: “Lazy Third Eye” by Willy Tea Taylor, The River Arkansas

Current read: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

Coffee Order: Cortado; no more 8 oz lattes!!!